1977

‘Don’t look it.’

‘So they got someone?’

‘Yep.’

‘Who?’

‘Fuck knows.’

‘Come on?’

‘Straight up. No-one knows, just brass.’

‘Why all the secrecy?’

‘I tell you, fuck knows.’

‘But they’re saying it’s not Ripper?’

‘That’s what they’re saying.’

‘What you reckon?’

‘Fuck knows, Jack. It’s weird.’

‘You heard owt else? Anything?’

‘How much?’

‘Call it an even fifty if it’s good.’

‘Couple of lads reckon some blokes have been suspended, but you didn’t hear that from me.’

‘Over this?’

‘Aye, that’s what a couple of lads here said.’

‘From Millgarth?’

‘That’s what they said.’

‘Who?’

‘DI Rudkin, your mate Fraser, and DC Ellis.’

‘Ellis?’

‘Mike Ellis. Fat twat with a big gob?’

‘Don’t know him. And they reckon they did this woman in Bradford?’

‘Now Jack, I didn’t say that. They’ve just been suspended, that’s all I know.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Aye.’

‘You surprised?’

‘Rudkin, no. Fraser, yes. Ellis, yeah but everyone hates him anyway.’

‘Cunt?’

‘Complete and utter,’

‘But everyone knew Rudkin was dirty?’

‘Lads don’t call him Harry for nowt,’

‘Fuck. What way?’

‘When he worked Vice he was keeping more than streets clean.’

‘And Fraser?’

‘You met him; he’s Mr fucking Clean. Owl’s always helped him along and all.’

‘Maurice Jobson? Why?’

‘Fraser’s married to Bill Molloy’s daughter, isn’t he?’

‘Fuck,’ I sighed. ‘And Badger Bill’s got cancer, yeah?’

‘Aye.’

‘Interesting.’

‘If you say so,’ shrugged Wilson.

I looked at my watch.

‘Best put that away,’ he said, pointing at the piece of paper on the table.

I nodded and put it in my pocket, taking out my wallet.

I counted out the notes under the table and handed him fifty.

‘That’ll do nicely, sir,’ he winked and stood up to go.

‘Anything at all, Samuel, give us a call?’

‘You bet.’

‘I mean it. If this is him, I want to know first.’

‘Got you,’ and he buttoned up his coat and was gone.

I looked at my watch and went to the telephone.

‘Bill? Jack.’

‘What you got?’

‘It’s strange, all right. Dead prostitute under a sofa in Bradford.’

‘Told you, Jack. I told you.’

‘But they’re saying it’s not a Ripper job.’

‘So why are they keeping it from us?’

‘I don’t know but, and this is just what I reckon, somehow some of brass have fucked up and there’s been some suspensions.’

‘Really?’

‘That’s what rumour is round Millgarth.’

‘Who?’

‘That Sergeant Fraser for one. John Rudkin and someone else.’

‘Detective Inspector John Rudkin? Over what?’

‘Don’t know. Might be nowt to do with this, but seems odd yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve got a bloke going to let us know first thing he hears.’

‘Good. I’ll have Front Page on standby.’

‘But you best not say why’

‘You still going to Manchester?’

‘I think so, yeah. But I’ll come back via Bradford.’

‘Keep in touch, Jack.’

‘Bye.’

I sat on the train and smoked and drank a warm can, picked at a sandwich and flicked through a paperback book, Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution.

After Huddersfield I just dozed, bad ale and sleep to match, waking to the hills and the rain, hair stuck against a dirty window, drifting:

I look at my watch, it’s 7.07.

I’m on the Moors, walking across the Moors, and I come to a chair, a high-backed leather chair, and there’s a woman in white kneeling before the chair, hands in angel prayer, hair across her face.

I lean down to scoop the hair away and it’s Carol, then Ka Su Peng. She stands up and points to the middle of the long white dress and a word in bloody fingerprints there writ:

livE.

And there on the Moors, in the wind and in the rain, she pulls the white dress up over her head, her yellow belly swollen, and then puts the dress back on, inside out, the word in bloody fingerprints there writ:

Evil.

And a small boy in blue pyjamas comes out from behind the high-backed leather chair and leads her away across the Moors and I stand there in the wind and in the rain and I look at my watch and it’s stopped:

7.07 .